Perspective Is Everything

I want to share with you a passage of Scripture found in the book of Kings, Second Kings, chapter 6, verses 8 through 23. And I am not going to read the whole chapter; instead, I am going to go to verse 15. We know the story well. The king of Syria is trying to harm the Jewish nation and is continually setting traps, as it were, to ambush them. God continually reveals to the prophet Elisha where those traps, those ambushes, are, and he delivers the Jewish people; and finally the Syrian king becomes suspicious and thinks they are wiretapping him. And he says, “What is going on? We have a spy among us. Reveal to me, tell me who the spy is.” They tell him, “King, there is no spy; the thing is that Israel has a prophet who is second to none, and he sees and hears from God and knows exactly where you are going to set the ambushes.”

Then the king becomes enraged and sends a mighty army to capture the prophet Elisha, and they enter Jewish territory, and in verse 15 it says:

“And he who served the man of God rose early in the morning and went out”—this is Gehazi, Elisha’s servant—he rose early in the morning and went out to breathe the good morning air, and what happened? It says, “Behold, an army had surrounded the city with horses and chariots”—what a tremendous scene this man stumbled upon; it ruined his morning. “And then his servant said to him, ‘Oh, my lord, what shall we do?’” He told him, “Do not be afraid, because those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

I can see John Wayne with two pistols, saying it like this: “Do not be afraid, because those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” I would have liked to have said that sometime in my life, all on my own, without having it put here in the Bible for me. “And Elisha prayed and said, ‘I pray, O Jehovah, that you open his eyes so that he may see.’”

That is what this is about: a change of perspective, seeing through God’s eyes. That is what I would call this sermon: Seeing Through God’s Eyes. And the first thing Elisha asks is that his servant, filled with panic and terror at the overwhelming size of this army, may see what is truly happening in the spiritual world.

“Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see. Then Jehovah opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

Glory to God. A great angelic army—and not just any chariots; these were chariots of fire. There was some spiritual gasoline they were burning there. They were ablaze.

“…and chariots of fire all around Elisha, and when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to Jehovah and said….”

Notice how interesting this is; it had not occurred to me until I read this just now. These Syrians do not know what is happening in the spiritual world. They do not know about the drama unfolding between Elisha and his servant; they are probably coming arrogantly to seize Elisha and take him away.

“…When the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to Jehovah and said, ‘I pray that you strike these people with blindness,’ and he struck them with blindness according to Elisha’s request. And afterward Elisha told them, ‘This is not the way, nor is this the city; follow me, and I will lead you to the man you seek,’ and he led them to Samaria.” Like meek little lambs, they said, okay, fine, off we go. They were under a trance that the Spirit had placed them in. And when they arrived in Samaria, Elisha said, “‘Jehovah, open the eyes of these men so that they may see,’ and Jehovah opened their eyes, and they looked and found themselves in the middle of Samaria,” that is, in the capital of Israel.

They found themselves right in New York, surrounded by taxis and honking cars. How did we get here? They had not realized it.

“And when the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, ‘Shall I kill them, my father?’ And he answered him, ‘No, do not kill them.’”

I have always liked the irony of this king, the secular government asking God’s government for advice about what to do. And of course, in secular government, men are always trying to resolve things the way they resolve them: with force, with cruelty, in terms of human power. Elisha has other weapons, which are the weapons of the Kingdom of God: love, mercy, forgiveness, grace. Those are the weapons the devil does not know how to deal with. That is free; the people at the morning service did not get that—that is for you. It is the bonus, and sometimes the bonus is better than the meat itself.

I long for the day when the moment comes in which the church offers counsel because earthly government comes to the church seeking solutions to society’s problems. When the power of God is in the church, as it was with Elisha, that is what happens: the secular powers go to the church for advice. I know a day will come when the secular powers will ask for the counsel of a church that has been redeemed and is powerful in the Lord. And that time is coming, because the moment is arriving when the machinery is grinding to a halt; there is no way out anymore. Men do not know how to solve the problems of the world and society. And they do not have the answer; the church has it.

“Shall I kill them, my father?” He answered him, “‘Do not kill them. Would you kill those whom you take captive with your sword and your bow? Set bread and water before them so that they may eat and drink and return to their masters.’”

Love again—the solution. Our weapons are not carnal, but mighty through God for the destruction of strongholds. We overcome with the weapons of light.

“Then a great meal was prepared for them, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they returned to their lord.” And look here: I believe that if the king of Samaria had killed these men, the war against Israel would have continued, but look at what happens. “And armed bands from Syria never again came into the land of Israel.”

That was checkmate: he heaps coals of fire upon his head. Elisha had the perspective of the Kingdom. He could see things in terms of the Kingdom, and therefore this entire passage is about that: the right perspective, the right way of seeing the things in the world around you.

If we acquire the right perspective concerning our problems and our situations—because that is what it is about. There are two perspectives on earth: the rational, natural human perspective, and the spiritual, divine, eternal perspective. And those two realities are continually moving among us, but everything depends on how open our eyes are to see the reality of the Spirit and to interpret the events and situations of our lives in the light of the Spirit.

And that is what it is about: that we may attain that perspective. Because this entire text is about versions of reality. We cannot explore it in full depth, but modern science has certainly come, as never before, to understand that this world is not as fixed as we think. The world is far more malleable, more dynamic, and more mysterious. Ironically, the more science advances, the more it resembles religion, because it realizes that the world is very mysterious and that everything depends on perspectives and on the way we see it. Everything is relative.

For example, in physics, Einstein is credited with the theory of the relativity of time and space and what we call three dimensions. The world has more than three dimensions. Science knows that now; science also speaks of parallel universes. It is almost science fiction that we are reaching that point. And everything is a matter of perspective, and certainly in the world we live in today, one sees that continually.

This whole matter unfolding in American politics right now and in this nation is a matter of perspective, of different ways of seeing the world. I do not want to get sidetracked, because I could spend the entire sermon on that illustration alone, but you read one newspaper and it tells you one thing, and you read another newspaper and it tells you something else.

And I believe that one of the great achievements of this strange and sometimes obnoxious man—who is also like an animal that charges at things and breaks many things that are sacred to this society but need to be shattered and broken—is this idea that, for example, the press is objective and that you can believe what you read; and we have discovered that you cannot. The famous alternative facts—nowadays you do not truly know what to believe, and this man says that President Obama wiretapped him, electronically spied on his campaign.

That is an incredible accusation; such a thing would never have been heard in this nation. And then many people say, “That is impossible, because there are so many constitutional protections against it.” Others say, “Well, who knows? Let us investigate.” It is a world in which you do not know what the truth is or what reality is. It is as though we move through a world of mirrors reflecting one another. You have seen that movie, with Bruce Lee in China, the mirror, and he does not know where his opponent is; he moves, and the opponent is behind him. We live in a world of mirrors reflecting one another. That is what I was told; I never saw the movie, but someone told me about it.

It is a world of mirrors, reflections, and different perspectives. And you know what, brothers and sisters? It is the same in the spiritual world. Everything depends on whether you can adopt God’s perspective regarding the things you are experiencing. As we see with these people here, one moment Elisha’s servant is seeing one perspective, a world in which this great army is surrounding them, is going to kill them, and there is no hope. Elisha sees through God’s eyes and sees angels and archangels and chariots of fire and a great army, a mighty army around them, protecting them, guarding them, ensuring that their lives are preserved intact.

Afterward, he prays for the Syrians to lose their sight, and the Syrians enter a trance, because it is not that they are physically blind; they can move and guide their horses, but they are in a trance, hypnotized by the power of God. And they see yet do not see, and their perspective on reality is something hypnotic, and they keep walking but do not recognize where they are going. And suddenly, when they reach a certain place, God tells them, “Now I am going to change your perspective”—boom—and once again they see the real world in which they are moving.

Everything is perspective. Do you remember the disciples on the road to Emmaus? The Lord is walking with them—the Lord with whom they have spoken, whom they have seen, whom they have heard, with whom they have shared so many times—and they do not recognize him, because the Lord has mentally hidden himself from them. And for a time he keeps their eyes as though… to amuse himself with them, to see what they are thinking. And then a moment comes when he takes the bread and breaks it before them, and as he breaks the bread, as he breaks it apart, he opens their eyes; they awaken and realize, “Oh, it is the Lord.” They were seeing him physically. The Lord did not change his appearance; their perspective changed, and suddenly they understood that this Messiah, whom they thought had been defeated, definitively crucified, with no hope left—their every dream destroyed, all the faith they had that this was the Son of God shattered—was risen; and suddenly everything is restored, and they see the risen Son of God. And once again the clock continues ticking toward eternity.

Everything is perspective—how we see things. And I believe that this text—this morning I was preparing it early in the morning, and I was actually headed in another direction, but along the way God changed my course and told me, “Wait, stay there,” because this matter of perspective was only my first point. But I realized there was so much meat there that there was no reason to go to the other thigh when I had enough with one, so I ground it up right there, and I am still grinding the little bones, and that is what I want to share with you.

What is important is that we see things through God’s eyes and not only through the eyes of the flesh; that we see our problems, our struggles, our situations, our future, our gifts, our calling, and our family through God’s eyes, as God sees things. Because if you and I gain access to the perspective God has for me, for my future, to what God has for you and for your children, for your dreams, and if you dare to believe God and remain in that perspective, and when the devil tries to tear it away from you so that you will fix your eyes upon his serpentine eyes, you keep your gaze fixed on Christ Jesus, on his good purpose for your life, on what he has declared, what he has spoken to you, what he has told you.

I am preaching this sermon to myself, brothers and sisters, right now. Because many times God tells you many things, but everyday life tries to drag you away from the sublimity of your nature and make you think about tiny, exhausting little things that rob you of the inspiration and virtue of ministry and of that marvelous drama you are living. You are magnetized; your world is not simply a piece of cold metal. No, your world is a magnet full of possibilities, a precious, pulsating jewel of brilliant colors. And that is you; that is your life; this is your future. And if you can believe that, if you can live in the magical dimension, in the magical perspective to which God has called you, then you can live on that plane, at that level, not at the petty level of everyday life.

And that is why I say that this passage, like no other, reminds me of that: that there are multiple realities in which you can live, and the most immediate one is the present reality where you are right now, perhaps with your marital problem, perhaps with your financial problem, perhaps with your annoying and oppressive boss, perhaps with your children who are not following the right path, or perhaps with your emotional condition that does not yield to your prayers, and you have depression or anxiety or insomnia, and you are struggling with the giant, and the Syrian army is surrounding you, threatening you with its numbers and its strength, and God says to you, ‘Fight to enter the other reality in which I have placed you, where, through that struggle, I am crafting a beautiful drama for you.’

And this is not simply a tiny human struggle against insignificant little things; rather, you are a great hero in a heroic narrative, a wonderful epic in which you are adorned with feathers and a crown, and you have a bronze bow and warrior’s boots, and God is crafting a plan for your life.

I wish God would help all of us always to go behind the curtains, to the other side of reality, where the true dramas of our lives are being crafted. There are parallel dramas, and unfortunately we always remain in the most immediate drama, which is the drama of time and space, and we cannot access the other, much greater and more beautiful drama, where God is working through all our struggles, our problems, our challenges, every ordinary moment, and is teaching us things, strengthening us, training us, glorifying himself through our sweat, our tears, our blood; and we are glorifying God through our dramas, and God says, do not worry, because I am enjoying it, and when the time comes, I will bring you out, because I have already squeezed all the juice out of you, and now I am going to set you down to rest.

I like that. So many passages come to mind as I say that. The psalmist who says, I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry; he brought me up out of the pit of despair, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and then put a new song in my mouth, praise to our God. Many will see this and fear and trust in the Lord.

Many times we see only the dungeon, we see only the deep pit, we see only the miry clay, the darkness of the tunnel in which we are trapped, but we cannot access that moment when God will bring us out and put a new song in our mouths, set us on solid ground, and we will be able to sit down like warriors after the battle, have something cold to drink and something nourishing to eat, boast about the heroic deeds we performed when we were in battle, and laugh over our victory.

But we have to live life at that level, brothers and sisters, at an epic level, at life’s adventurous level, without taking our eyes off that dimension. I think of Job, who loses his children, loses his money, loses his health, and has lost everything; and he is there and does not know what is happening: Why, Lord, is all this happening to me? I believe that if many of us were Job, we would have shot ourselves a long time ago. May God rebuke the devil. The first thing alone would already be enough. But Job did not know, nor did his annoying friends know, that behind all his struggle there was an epic drama between God and the devil.

Now, I say that the devil can never prevail against God, but there was a struggle over God’s glory, and Job was in the middle of that struggle. God said to Satan, “Hey, look at my son, at how he serves me; why don’t you behave yourself? Look at how he glorifies me.” Because Job was a godly man. Satan says, “Of course he does”—cynic that he is—“of course he serves you, because you bless him. Look at all the children he has, all the money he has, the prestige, the health. Take any of those things away from him, and you will see how he curses you.” The Lord said, “Okay, let’s see.”

Because everything in the world is about that. It is all about the glory of God. It is the great drama between God and humanity. Humanity does not want to give glory to God and gives it to the devil instead, and God has a wound in his heart that bleeds continually throughout history. The fact is that his creature does not give him the glory he deserves. His people abandoned him and left him for little things too, and God is always seeking his glory. And in the way we fight our struggles and our battles, God’s glory is at stake in all those things, brothers and sisters.

And then there is a battle, and God says, take this away from him, take that away from him, take the other thing away from him, because the devil cannot do anything in your life that God does not permit him to do. And God will never allow you to be tested beyond what you are able to bear, the Word says, even if it does not seem that way to you. But the Lord allows things, and he calibrates your struggles to lead you to something greater, to a glory that he also has for you.

Job did not have the right perspective. He did not know everything that was happening. I believe that if he had known that he was a central figure in a drama that billions of people would see... It is said that the Book of Job was the first book of the Bible to be written; it was not Genesis, but Job, because the events it recounts do not matter here; what matters is when the book was produced, when it was written. They say that Job was possibly the first book of the Bible to be written, the oldest of them all.

The fact is that thousands of years have passed since that book was written; we are in the two-thousands, and that book was written about 1,500 years before the New Testament, which means that it has been about three-thousand-something years. How many people have read the Book of Job? How many billions of people? How many dramas, how many books have been written?

If Job had known that his struggle, which seemed confined to a tiny hole in some isolated place, was going to become a drama that would bless and inspire billions of people throughout history, don’t you think he would have fought differently? Perhaps with less anxiety, fewer doubts, because Job doubted a great deal—and who would not doubt when all his children die, when he loses his family, his health, everything? But he had no idea that behind his struggle there was a universal, epic drama between the principles of the devil and the principles of God, between the glory of God and the cynicism of Satan, and that he was at the very center of that drama.

Many times we do not possess the great virtue of being able to see our struggles, what God is doing around us, how God is using our struggles, and how much depends on the way we fight the battle of faith, on how we live every minute of our lives, whether we are going to quit, as people say, or whether we are going to hold our ground because the glory of God is at stake and because I know that my Redeemer lives, as he said.

We do not know, we do not understand, we do not have the right perspective, and this book is about maintaining the right perspective—when we are suffering, seeing things in the light of the Spirit of God. Elisha has the virtue of being able to understand that.

And do you know what the origin of this sermon was? I have just finished a series on prayer, and I asked the Lord, Lord, show me what you have next for this people. Because I do not like sermons; I can pull one out—I have boxes of sermons from which I could take one, warm it over, and get by. But no, it is about giving God’s people the Word of God, today’s bread, not merely solving a problem. God blesses when we believe in him and pay the price.

Then God spoke to me about the Book of Habakkuk, which I believe I am going to preach on in the coming days, when I can—Habakkuk, three chapters. Habakkuk is a book for our times, but since there is an interruption and I do not want to talk about that, I decided on a prelude to that study, and then this passage about Elisha occurred to me. And this is the reason: today I want to preach about the Book of Habakkuk, because the Book of Habakkuk is a book that speaks precisely about struggles and crises. When a man of God looks at the world and the national situation in which he lives, and there is so much anxiety and so much danger, and he asks himself why all of this is happening, the Book of Habakkuk is a dialogue between God and his prophet. Israel, specifically Judah, is being threatened by Babylon, and Habakkuk asks the Lord why, what is happening, and what are your plans? Judah is an unjust people; it is practicing idolatry. God is going to judge it. And Habakkuk wonders about all of this, and it is a book that speaks to us about these times.

Early this morning, as I meditated, I understood that Habakkuk is a book for this time; it is almost like a prophetic book for this time, because God sets his works in motion at the proper moment. We are living in times of great anxiety, and here is the punch line, as they say, the link to what I am preaching. We are living in times of great anxiety, and everything depends on how we see things: whether we are going to see them from a purely political, historical, and material perspective, or whether we are going to see them from the spiritual perspective, through eternity, through God’s movement in history, through the things God is doing behind the scenes, through the mysterious and elusive way in which God moves in history.

God does not move according to the simplistic schemes of human beings. God does not move according to the interests of Republicans or Democrats. God does not move according to the interests of Obama or Trump. God does not move according to the interests of white people or Black people. God does not move according to the interests of those from the South or those from the North, those who drink tea or those who drink coffee. God does not move according to those human plans; God moves according to his own, highly complex agenda. And he is always moving. The Kingdom of God is always advancing.

The Bible says that the Kingdom of God advances forcefully, and I see the Kingdom of God as an iceberg that keeps moving, dragging along everything it finds in its path, tearing through mountains, breaking rocks, sweeping along rivers and valleys, and creating new geophysical and also geopolitical realities. The Kingdom of God is advancing; it is moving powerfully in the Middle East, in Asia, in Europe, in the United States. The Kingdom of God advances, advances—Latin America, Africa, Australia—the Kingdom of God moves; India—the Kingdom of God is moving.

And all these things we hear about, these wars and rumors of wars, are the movements of the womb that wants to give birth; and when a woman is pregnant, the womb becomes hostile and turbulent, and something is going to be born. I do not know what it will be, but something is going to emerge from the world’s pregnancy right now. God is moving, but these are times of great anxiety, because when a mother is about to give birth there is anxiety, there is pain, there is anguish. And the world is in anguish right now, and it is going to give birth to something. It could be an incredible cataclysm, it could be a war, it could be a natural event, it could be a transformation of the world. I do not know; something is going to... Say that you heard it first here at Congregación León de Judá: something is coming, something is moving.

Nevertheless, these are times of great anxiety. And you can choose the perspective you are going to adopt: either the perspective of what is purely immediate, political, current, and social, or the divine, spiritual, eternal perspective. And depending on which of the two alternatives you adopt, that will determine your degree of calm or unrest, worry or rest, anxiety or confidence, exhaustion or great energy as a consequence of seeing the glory of God manifested on earth. Everything depends on how you see it. Whether you see it through the eyes of Elisha or through the eyes of Elisha’s servant, Gehazi. There are two churches: Gehazi and Elisha. There are two perspectives: the perspective of the natural, carnal church and the perspective of the church informed by God’s prophetic vision.

Again, why did I choose this passage, why did I choose Habakkuk, why did I choose this theme? Because we live—I come back to this again, because it must be emphasized and clarified—because we live in times of great anxiety, of great turmoil. Our immigrant brothers and sisters are terribly afraid and uncertain; they do not even dare travel to their own countries because they believe they will not be allowed to return. Many people complain about this country, but let them be left over there and you will see how they scream. Many people are living in uncertainty; our undocumented brothers and sisters are... there is an army surrounding them. There are Syrians literally seeking to capture them and take them away, and they are afraid, like Elisha’s servant; they are frightened, and with good reason if we look at it through the eyes of the mind and the eyes of reason.

But brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you to see things through Elisha’s eyes, through the eyes of faith—to see that God is doing something and that we must be at peace. There are people on the left, progressive Christians, who see what is happening in this nation, in the White House, and they go to bed and suffer from insomnia every night; they have to take four pills just to sleep. Oh, what is happening! We have a madman in the White House.

There are others on the other side who see what is happening in this nation, with all the terrible immorality, and some time ago, when President Obama was supporting a number of utterly ungodly laws and contaminating this nation with an immorality established within the very government of the United States, they too thought, “Well, it is all over now. Jezebel is about to come to power, and Ahab with her.” That was how they viewed those elections, and now they see the world—and this nation—drifting farther and farther away from God, and they are afraid and believe that before long all the Christians will be beheaded; and there are Pentecostal brothers out there preaching that the Antichrist is already here, that the beast is already in New York, and that the Lord will soon come to take us from the earth, while all the ungodly people from Lion of Judah who drink wine and beer and all those things will be left behind. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Lord, take us out of this cruel world. Different perspectives. Everyone is anxious at this time, brothers and sisters; everyone is anxious and afraid. And what I want to tell you in the name of the Lord is that God is in control. God’s armies have not left the earth; the angels are here. God is seated on his throne. He is in control of history. He is leading humanity toward the end to which he intends to lead it. The Kingdom of God continues to advance; the thing is that God does not move the way men move, and we are that people of God who have angels all around us.

God’s good purpose is with us. Immigrant brother, do not weep like those who have no hope; please, do not go hide in a cave like Gideon from the Midianites. Face the devil and declare that God takes care of you; God changes the king’s heart. God changes things because God protects his own. And I know that God has brought these people here, who have arrived in ways that, I know, were unconventional; but that is also how the Pilgrims arrived, and they stole this land from the Native Americans, and they took 80 percent of the Mexicans’ land from them in the year 1865 in an unjust war, which historians today acknowledge. And look, I am not a leftist, but I call things what they are, because there is no need to get carried away. We, the children of God, live in eternity, not in time and space. We do not get carried away by anyone.

The point is that all these things are… God has brought us here to this nation for a purpose, and God is going to preserve us, and God will bless you, take care of you, and protect you; and if he decides to take you back to your homeland, you will prosper there and be blessed, because God’s blessing is not limited to one piece of land. God owns the gold and the silver and can bless you wherever you may be. Can you believe that? Can you come to conceive of saying, “Lord, if you send me to the moon or to Mars, I will prosper there, I will be a blessing, and I will be blessed”? And you can sleep peacefully; you can rest. “Peace in the Storm”—we sing it and, wow, our hearts rise to the clouds, but as soon as we leave here, it is gone; the devil stole the seed from us, like the birds that stole the seed in Jesus Christ’s parable.

Keep it there in your heart. God is on his throne. God changes events. God is directing the events of history. You have to see things through divine eyes and not be afraid, and ask the Lord, “Father, give me your eyes so that I may see reality as you see it. I am not going to despair. I am not going to scream like one of those buffoons, as the Mexicans say; I am going to maintain my dignity, my spiritual fortitude.”

The Lord said, “When you see all these things happening, lift up your heads, because the day of your redemption is near.” The one who has God’s perspective, when crises come upon the world, wars and rumors of wars, lifts his head instead of letting it droop, because then God’s glory will be manifested in his life. Believe and remain centered on what God has declared over your life, because God is always advancing his agenda.

When the Hebrews were being held captive in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, with their nation destroyed, their walls broken down, and themselves punished for their unfaithfulness, they did not know what to think, and they thought, “God has abandoned us now. God has left us. The Babylonians won the fight; we lost our history, we lost our nation, we lost our inheritance.”

Imagine that today the Chinese came, let us say, entered through California, and took possession—there is a series out there that talks about that. What would happen if the Chinese came in and invaded America? People do not sleep because they are thinking of ways to make money from things. The point is, what would happen? How would you view the world and life? Well, that is how the Jews were. Exiled in Babylon, there was no hope for them, and God sent them a letter from himself through the prophet Jeremiah.

There it is in Jeremiah 29, and he says to the Hebrews, “Look, while you are in Babylon, do not simply lie down and die; do not stop making love to your wives and having children—forgive how frank and graphic the wording is—because when someone is depressed, the last thing he wants to think about is making love. That is very legitimate; it is very psychiatrically correct. Have children, open stores, cultivate gardens, open businesses, because I know the thoughts I have concerning you, thoughts of good and not of evil, to give you the end you are hoping for.”

And God tells them, “When 70 years have passed”—he even gives them the precise length of time—“after I brought you here…” It was not Nebuchadnezzar who took them to Babylon; it was God who sent them there. Nebuchadnezzar was not in control; God was in control, just as God has brought us here for a purpose. You did not come here fleeing poverty or gangs in Honduras or El Salvador; you came here because God brought you. God sent these people here for a purpose.

And God tells them, “Multiply; live a full life while you serve out your time, because after 70 years I am going to change the king’s heart and send you back to Jerusalem so that you may worship me once again in your land and in my land.”

Because it is God who is in control, not man. I encourage you, my brother, my sister, to believe God. Fight on your knees; fight through fasting; fight so that God will either enlighten or eliminate, but will do something. May he change the heart, change the mechanisms, or whatever it may be, because God is even more powerful than that. “Do not fear, for I am with you,” says the Lord. “I am your God who strengthens you.” As it says, “I will always care for you, I will always cover you, I will always help you with the right hand of my righteousness.”

You have to believe God. And that is why the Lord tells the Hebrews in Babylon, “Multiply; go on living.” Brother, do not shut yourself inside an apartment with the curtains drawn because you are afraid to go out. No, but do not be crazy either, obviously; do not walk around waving a flag and shouting, “Hey, here I am.” But do not stop enjoying life either: live, worship, serve, give, and give, and give.

We have to live, brothers and sisters. The biggest rock you can throw at the devil’s head is to laugh in his face, worship the Lord, and proclaim God’s good news. Even if you are trembling, say, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end of time I will see him, and my mouth will worship him.” Do not be led by your emotions. Live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God; set God’s reality before and against the devil’s reality. Believe that behind this merely human, temporal reality lie the reality of the Kingdom of God and eternity, and right now there are struggles taking place between principalities and powers and the Kingdom of God, contending over this earth and the divine creation, and we are in the middle. We are going to decide what will happen—we will, through our prayers and the way we live.

And that is why God tells the Hebrews in Jeremiah 29, “And pray for the peace of the city, because in its peace you too will have peace.” In other words, do not merely live and do things for yourselves, because I have even given you reserves so that you may pray for the city in which you are living as well. Pray for the government; pray for Donald Trump; pray for the United States; pray for this nation. Do not curse; do not be resentful; do not harbor hatred in your heart; do not harbor any kind of resentment.

We bless. Like Elisha, we do not kill; rather, we give people food—heaping coals of fire on their heads, if that is the case. Pray, praise, rejoice, declare God’s goodwill, believe that the visitation is right there around the corner, and continue trusting in the Lord. And so I say to everyone here: whatever situation you may be going through, whatever your marital, family, personal, physical, ministerial, housing, documentation, relational, internal, or spiritual situation may be, whatever internal struggles you may have in your life—whatever it may be, my brother, my sister—there are two realities. One is the reality you are contemplating right now, the struggle to pay the bills every day; and the other reality is the God who provides for you, the God who blesses you, the God who has never left you, the God who will never allow you to be put to shame if you trust in him.

Ask God to tear the cobweb from your eyes so that you can see God’s glory all around you, so that you can see those chariots of fire fighting for your well-being, and the blessing of the God who says, “I know the thoughts I have concerning you. They are thoughts of good. Your children will not be criminals; your children will be redeemers, rebuilders of ruins. Your children will bless the nations; they will build cities. You will not die but live, and I have good things for you.”

“At the end of this battle, I will set your feet upon a rock, make your steps straight, and put a new song in your mouth; and many will see it, give thanks to God, and fear. They will fear that glorious God whom you have.” Lord, help us see the world through your eyes, from your perspective, Lord. Help us seek your glory; do not let us see only the impoverished reality we inhabit right now. Begin with me, Father. Do not allow the enemy to tear away from us your grand vistas and your great promises, Lord.

Do not allow daily life to exhaust us so thoroughly that we throw in the towel because the battle has gone on too long. We renew our gaze and will set it once again on you and your reality. Once again we look toward your promise, Father; once again we keep our eyes fixed on Christ Jesus, who endured such hostility from men, so that we may not grow weary and fainthearted.

I want to keep my eyes on divine reality, God’s reality, his good purpose. I invite you to refresh your gaze now in the name of the Lord. Close your eyes and see with the eyes of the spirit. I choose to see the good things God has for my offspring, for my descendants, for this ministry, for the people I love, and for the things I value.

Oh Lord, lift up our heads so that we may understand what you have for us. Change our perspective, Lord; change our gaze and let us see your glory. Let us see your good purpose, Father. Oh Lord, visit all those who are suffering anguish at this time, Lord—those who are afraid, those who are weeping, those who look at the world with uncertainty, Father, in the name of Jesus. Renew our eyes and renew our gaze so that we may see you as you desire to be seen, Lord.

Oh Father, if someone came this morning with anxiety in his heart about something, with an impoverished vision, may that person leave this place seeing you with chariots of fire all around them, great warriors of the spirit, with wings outstretched, covering and protecting them at every step of their life. We believe, Lord, that your method has not changed; you have not forgotten us. We are your chosen people, and you love these people and have good purposes for them.

Help us fight this battle with dignity, Lord. The evil day is in our midst, but you have told us to put on the armor of God. Let us take up the whole armor of God, all the resources of the Kingdom, all the instruments of spiritual warfare, and clothe ourselves with the word of your Gospel, with the sword of that word, Lord, with the boots of the Gospel, with the armor of faith, righteousness, hope, and love.

Oh Lord, help us believe you. At this time we declare—this congregation here declares—that God is on his throne, God is in control of history, and we say, “Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Your will be done. We want to see your glory manifested upon the earth, Lord. Visit your creation and renew it, Father; visit this earth whose battery is running out, Lord, and which needs to be renewed. And visit us so that we may be part of your solution to the world’s problems.

Thank you for being in control. We worship you and bless you, Lord. Hallelujah! Send us out of here with a new vision, so that we will not look at the petty things of this world, at the annoyances, at the mosquitoes that are always trying to rob us of peace, but will be like eagles soaring above all that pollution.

Keep us focused on your reality, Lord. I ask that the hearts of my brothers and sisters be renewed this afternoon. Away with fear, away with anguish, away with anxiety, away with panic, away with doubt, away with every weakening thought. Away with everything unworthy of a warrior of God with his sword in his hand, in the name of the Lord. Father, visit your people and defend the little ones, Lord; defend the weak; defend those who love and worship you and fight for your glory, Lord. Defend them. Fight for your people, Lord, and we will stand behind you and your great wings, and we will take shelter under the shadow of your wings, Lord.

Be glorified, Father, in this land, and fulfill your purposes, and let us see through your gaze, your eyes, Lord, what we desire today. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Thank you, Lord. Amen, amen. Thank you, God.